scoutmom111

So if the new WB is suppose to be leadership training... and for people that don't interact one on one with the boys and camp....and doesn't include scout craft... (like knots, first aid, backpacking etc) then I took the old WB and I want credit for doing it!!! ***Mama Bear is growling again.*** I wish they did have a separate scout craft training. It would be a good training to do every other year. Shoot, do youth protection one year and scout craft the next. It could even be part of the camporee and be something the adults could be doing while the boys are doing their thing! It should be offered at summer camp for the adults that are there (our camp did offer postition spacific training this year). I think WB could be leadership only... shoot give one bead for leadership only and two if you do the camping/scout craft and leadership together. It wouldn't hurt my feelings. Maybe you'd get more people to come.

Dr. Phil is a very nice man... a very TALL man. His advise to us was to have everything in moderation... to have balance. To take me someplace with indoor plumbing! (Yes, there was indoor plumbing at WB but that didn't count!!!) We have since made a point of doing things besides scouting. If anything, it has gotten me more involved with scouting... as I said, I just got done with WB. Mama bear

In this case he hasn't taken the training for his current position. He was in our patrol. He is a cubmaster and we got him to join our troop so he will do some additional training. He said it was really hard coming from the cubs and not having Boy Scout exposure. But we brought him along nicely... nicely enought to make him a T111!!! Our council records are very messed up right now so they probably can't check everyone. I do know that they are trying to do much better.

I used to be a Bear and a Good ol'Bear too, But now I'm finished Bearing... I don't know what to do. I'm growing old and feeble and I can Bear no more, So I am going to work my ticket if I can. Back to Gilwell, Happy land. I'm going to work my ticket if I can. WOW... finally.... that was great. Now for the rest of the critters!!! Mama Bear GOing happily to hybernate!

You go John-in-KC Now sing the owl verse!!!! Mama Bear checking her singing voice....

I've been told that it is also patriot day in honor of the 9/11 tragidy. Perhaps doing a flag ceremony or even putting an emphasis on discussing duty to God and country. You could even get some diversity stuff in there. Of course beings as they are young, you have to be careful. My son decided to have his Eagle court of honor on 9/11 last year. He wanted to turn the day into a positive day! Mama Bear

John-in-KC Sorry, I messed up your name. Frustrated bears sometimes skip details... (looking embarrassed...again) Anyway, I tried to hunt me up a fox. I messaged dancinfox... let's see if he follows thru. ( I have every faith he will) I searched this thread and he is the only fox that has sung yet!!! (at least as far as I could see... you know... the detail thing again *smile*) I should be able to sing soon! Mama bear Beware the smiling bear!

Hey JOhn-in-KY We done hunted us up an Eagle....now for a fox!!! burp... sorry ... (looking very embarrassed).... darn sneeky foxes.... I'll go get another one.... Mama Bear Still smiling!!!

Dear John-in-KY I think maybe we should hunt up a few Eagles and Foxes! Now that the Owls and Bears are ready. After all I'm no bird in the wilderness ... I'll go find them Eagles and Foxes. **smile** Beware the smiling bear! Mama Bear

I think one of the big items a webelo should look for when visiting a troop is how the boys respond to the webelos. Especially if this is at a normal meeting and not a meeting that is specifically set up to meet webelos! We had several webelos visit us last year at a regular meeting. One of our older scouts (he's autistic and about to finish his Eagle) went up to the boys, shook their hands, introduced himself and then introduced the boys to the group. The group then had them join into the activities, helping them when needed. It so impressed the young webelos that they were sold on our troop. Come to find out, one of the webelos has a brother with challenges. He really appreciated Leonard's greeting. I think they also need to ask what the troop likes to do. What are the achievements and challenges of the troop. If any troop says they don't have anything they need to work on such as training, communication... something they need to improve... well they aren't being completely honest!!!

quietly .... waiting for bear... waiting for bear... bear is after owl... Eagle... fox... owl... then BEAR!!! I hope they hurry... I want to SING!!!!

THe training is suppose to be standard. But I know that there were people in our WB that didn't have the training. Shoot one of the guy's tickets is to take his position training! Part of the reason in our council is the records were all screwed up. They did a concerted effort to get everything up to date at the last camporee. I know they plan to be much more careful from now on. A few years ago, I went in to clean up the records for my 2 boys. The council had my youngest listed as a first class cub scout...hummmm... After I got my boys corrected, I went ahead and got the troop records corrected. As it turned out, my efforts made it possible for a young man to get his eagle that would have been turned down. He had his first aid merit badge before he joined BS! It was fixed and his Eagle went thru. I've encouraged other troops to verify records. It is important. As the Adv chair...(hey I got the job because of doing the record verification... they figured it made me a good choice... one hour a week **smile**) I do a verification of they boys' records every 2 years. I am working on the training records for adults this year.

We had a young man that had just gotten his Eagle and turned 18 in our WB patrol. That was way too young IMO. He didn't pay a lot of attention to the programs. I think he felt like as an Eagle he knew it all. Of course we, as adults, see issues and concerns that we keep from the boys. A 18 year old scouter hasn't any of that experience. I know he wanted to get his beads with his dad. We made it a plus by having him lead on things we weren't experienced in. None of us had done Philmont, so he was in charge of our backpacking trip. He did a great job with the fire and cooking! We followed his lead. We also let him lead in many of the scout skills. Not that we didn't know our knots, but it gave us an opportunity to practice following... something with scouters need to practice often in a boy lead troop **smile**. I agree that the person should be in scouting for about 2 years and very involved... before WB. I think you just have a better perspective on what is being taught.

Sorry, indicating "tongue in cheek" is hard on e-mail. I just got done with several projects during BS training that needed more realistic deadlines.

Well... because the first deadline is never realistic. It is only when the job has problems does anyone listen to the people that have to actually complete the job... stop calling them whiners... and get realistic!!!! Mama Bear Programmer/analyst!!!

Having just completed the practical WB, and hind site being 20-20,I've noticed that several of my tickets were items that had been identified as a need by our troop. The tickets seem to be one of the hardest parts of WB (except for mine but that's a different thread **smile**). I will be talking to my troop committee about WB. The overall experience was great. I would love for the troop to idenify several more needs that are potential tickets. I think that this follows into having a vision. If we define a vision for the troop, it might help people see how their personal troop vision fits in... and it might encourage them to do WB.

Whenever I see my scouts needing a push towards their own moral compass, I will often saw "what's the scout law again?" You can almost see the wheels turn in their head. Most of the time they will do the right thing. But this only works because they have watched the scout law being lived by those around them. They have been taught that it is a life plan. Sometimes they just need to be recalibrated.

My dad always said that if you stay up with the owls you can't rise with the Eagles... That being said, let it be known that on our Saturday night hike, the Owl got in first, the Bears second. The Eagles did beat the bobwhites however! Our night out was fabulous. We got to bond on a different level. I've heard a lot of people say they like the old way. I've heard the new one called WB lite! But I like lite! Bears hybernate...they like to paw thru the garbage for the good stuff. They look at VW vans and see twinkies!!! Remember: Don't poke the bear!!!! **Smile**

I think that they are using the old way and not the new way. We had to do all our own cooking the last weekend. We had meal evaluations and site evaluations, but we didn't get any feedback until it was too late to improve. We had a hike Saturday night to a campsite where we had to use orienteering to get there. That night they did get a ride for me because of problems walking. Of course it was the SPL that set that up for me. She seems to walk the walk. During the presentations we were never given more than 5-10 minutes for potty breaks and drink breaks. It became a joke that when they finally gave us time for the potty they put us in a place where there wasn't one!!! During the sessions we were often told not to take notes since it would slow the session down.... I did read the web site about learning involves listening, taking notes and applying... hummm... should I send that on to the CD??? The TG and TC are not the same people. My patrol has 6 different TC. It will make it harder to continue to work as a group, but not impossible. I would love to see something that discribes how the new course should be. During one of the sessions, they asked us what could be done to increase training participation. They said that they will now be evaluated as a council on training. My comment was if you keep doing the same thing time after time and get the same results, why would you think that doing it the same way one more time will give you different results?!? The biggest complaint I've heard from people is that the info is great but the piddly stuff is frustrating. I didn't want to go to WB as it was described to me until I heard that the "NEW WB" was so much less frustrating... I still think it is odd that we did not get an evaluation form! I actually have an e-mail from my CD saying that she took an oath to follow the syllabus and that is what she is doing.. of course she didn't specify WHICH syllabus **smile**. My husband said that probably some of the council has been reading my posts. Being a good scout, I wouldn't say anything here that I wouldn't and haven't said to them. As a matter of fact, some of these comments is what made the CD send us an e-mail calling us the whiny bears... (helpful, friendly, courtious, kind... ) and another saying we were irritating. Oh, and I talked to the council person that is in charge of the WB course.... better to talk to a brick wall. He thinks I just want the cd punished.... NO (What do you want?) I want the course to be improved so the frustration factor is cut. I want the course to be uplifting, informative, and to have it follow the leadership qualities that they are teaching us. I want a Covey experience! And yes, I would be willing to put my time where my mouth is... I'd be glad to write up suggestions. And yes I know that not everything I suggest would be used ... duh... but feedback is a gift (it truly is) Mama Bear

I took woodbadge because I am always trying to learn more about leadership... okay and maybe new songs and cheers. I was glad to learn new ways to focus my leadership skills. I loved meeting new people from different areas. I got lots of new ideas for our troop. I was also glad that we had 4 people from our troop do WB together and we've recruited one new person for our troop. I also was just dying to find a good reason to invest in cool BS shorts... okay... not.... I couldn't wait to see what critter I'd be. (Mama bear fits me very well). I wanted my sons to see that mom and dad are committed to their troop... and at times should be committed to someplace else **giggle**

Do they usually have a course evaluation? Does it go to national? I've heard conflicting info on this. We didn't have an evaluation so far. May be it comes in the mail?

Okay dancinfox, you are now my newest hero. I knew there were CD's out there that got it... I wasn't just out of touch with BS training. I'm so glad I met some good ones here! Wow, they are confused... lets explain... give an example... keep the frustration low.... I don't know... I think you must be a limbo champ to flex that much! **giggle** I think I should just invite you all to my bead ceremony. I learned more here than I did from the CD. (Don't get me wrong the info was all great from all the presenters. Just not her example) I really don't want to invite her to my beading, but my husband said I need to be politically correct. You don't want to be the squeeky wheel that makes you the last one okay'd to leave from a camporee. Oh, this was funny... some of the people just changed their vision with each goal so it would match. They submitted the tickets separately and no one looked for continuity there.

I have stayed the course!!! I made it thru as of yesterday! The CD was still a pain in the ... bear paw.... She just cannot walk the walk. I ran into a lot of frustrated participants. I had 4 of my 5 tickets approved before I left. My last ticket "suggestion" was that I said I was going to have my Parent handbook reviewed by the committee and I would make revision. She responded "But will she change any thing" I had in the comments that distribution was up to the committee and the CD asked "How will she distribute the handbook... Does she ever think about what is next?" Sigh... So I (put my foot in the ground goffers hole... no... wait... that's something else) So I change the revision word to changes as needed. Hey, not every suggestion by the committee will get in ... please! I got done on Friday. The ones in our patrol that got done helped others including those in other patrols... we are all just WB critters. They were just really really rediculous with the tickets. I agree that there should be fine tuning, but the CD did all the tickets. The average returns was 6!!! I think as an instructor, if my students can't complete a task with in 3 tries, then I haven't done my job in explaining, demonstrating, guiding and enabling! (EDGE - see I did stay awake and listen!!!) One We got visited by all the "upper crust" people... you know the good old boys that have taken WB forever. They wanted to see how we worked together. Our patrol was awesome!!! We had it all down as far as team work. You know feedback is a gift (It truly is!!) but only if it is timely. We didn't get any meal or site evaluation until Noon on Saturday so we couldn't even use the evaluation to improve! We did just fine so that isn't the issue. But again, walk the walk!!! One of the last things they had us do was to leave the training area and be told by the SPL "Follow me".... okay... we walked about a mile, up hill, down... and 3 people had problems with walking distances. One man had a cane. But heaven forbid they change any of their plans do to someone elses limitations.... Hummm can we all say diversity together? When I got back from the hike, I was quite ill. My ticket COuncilor came to talk to me. I told him that the hike was just cruel. He appoligized. He realized that they knew there were people with limits and they didn't think about it. He said he will bring it up to the group. THe man with the can talked to the SPL and she also said they just didn't think but that was the way the CD wanted it. At least I really like my Ticket councelor. He was the first one to notice when I was frustrated (before my own TG did) and he helped me more than once! I can't wait to get to work on my tickets!

Okay so is there any good info in there? Can anyone post the good stuff so we can all enjoy the E-info? Our council does have our newsletter sent electronically now. You can request to have a hard copy sent.

You really need to learn that there are other vacations than scouting. Of course you can go check out the local attractions or even take longer trips. If those trips happen to eventually lead to a scout trip ... well... stuff happens! Actually, as Dr. Phil says, everything in balance. YOu don't want to become a one dementional scouter. Eventually these boys will grow up and start families of their own. If their spouse isn't as into scouting as ... well... my family is... then they need to learn by early example that it is okay to be balanced and do other things. Of course it took drastic action to get that thru to my husband and two boys. I love scouting and we do alot (just got back from wood badge) but I wanted to do other things besides scouting on the one weekend a month that we didn't have scouts. They wanted to stay home and watch TV. We ended up on Dr. Phil. That is where I got the balance quote. Now we do other things. I like ren fairs and re-enactments. We are now starting a venture crew that will do re-enactments. ANd it all started with us taking a non-scouting vacation! Mama Bear I use to be a Bear... C-10-06